Your future planning, your sex life, how you travel together, how you fight— it's all determined by how well and in what way you communicate as a couple. Whether it's in the early stages of a relationship or you've been together forever, communication is necessary to maintain and build intimacy as a couple.
While activities are surely important when it comes to improving intimacy in your relationship, asking questions is too. For some couples, it may come more naturally. If you're two people who love to overshare, you're comfortable sharing your emotions, or if you constantly ask each other questions, you may find that you have conversations that build intimacy already. But some people don't find it easy to be as open with their partner (or anyone), or need to be given an opportunity to talk about their feelings, which is where asking intimacy questions can really help improve your bond. And it's not just a one-time thing, asking intimacy-building questions regularly and consistently (though not overbearingly, obviously) is a good way to keep the closeness alive in your relationship.
Here are seven questions, from "are you happy?" to "where do you see this going?" that will help you build intimacy and keep it alive:
1. Are You Happy?
Don't underestimate the power of a basic check in— not just about your relationship, but about life generally. Just asking how they're feeling about life at the moment, if they're happy, or if they're worried about anything is crucial. You don't want to take for granted that you know how they're doing— especially if you're with someone who finds it difficult to open up or voice their fears. You need to give them opportunities to do this and checking in lets them vent and brings you closer.
2. How Was Your Day?
Big picture questions are important, but so are the little day-to-day ones. Intimacy and relationships are built on little acts of kindness, and showing that you're interested and then (genuinely) listening, is the easiest way to do this.
3. How Are You Feeling About The Relationship?
Don't assume you can read their minds. Taking a second to step back and ask how they're feeling about the relationship is crucial. You give them a platform to talk about anything that might be lingering or playing in the back of their minds. There are so many little things that are easy to clear up, but if you don't speak up, they can build up into something larger than life and do some real relationship damage. Make opportunities to deal with annoying issues a priority.
4. Is There Anything I Can Do Differently?
Part of intimacy is showing that you're willing to make yourself vulnerable. By checking if there's anything they need from you that they're not getting, you open yourself up but you also show that you trust your partner enough to do that. And you may find out if there's anything that you can do differently in the relationship, which is something they may not be willing to share unless you show you're open to it.
5. What Do You Want?
It not only brings you closer, it's good to see if where you want your lives to line up which each other. You show that you're interested in how your partner is as a whole— what they want from life outside of you. It's important that you recognize each other's autonomy, which builds trust and shows support.
6. Where Do You See This Going?
One of those questions that, depending on where you are in you relationship, can be really difficult to say, but needs to be asked. Again, you check in that you are both on the same page about what you want, but it's also just a good opportunity to check in about how they feel about the relationship. It's not helpful to constantly hash over things and self-analyze, but occasionally stepping back and seeing how and where things are going is important.
7. Are You Happy With Our Sex Life?
Here's another one where you are very much making yourself vulnerable and trusting your partner with your feelings. It's not always comfortable to talk about, and maybe you think everything you need to know is clear from the sex itself, but you'd be surprised by how many wants, fantasies, or just general comments (including great ones!) will come out if you address your sex life directly.
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